let it be a lie
by intastella burst
Summary: Repetition is his only constant. He memorizes the address, the room number, her new name--this time he will ask for "Noreen," for "Anna," for "Susan." Jack/Kate AU.


It arrives--finally, _finally_ it is here--on a drizzly Saturday, an hour before his shift begins, folded in two between the weekend paper and a utility bill. The manila envelope is far too large for the slip of notebook paper within. He drops his keys on the doorstep and sits down halfway, tense, both disbelieving and believing, believing in too much, too soon. Just seven words. The stamp is Queen Elizabeth. The postmark: Ottawa.

* * *

He has to try the key three times, jamming it too eagerly the first and pulling it out too soon for the other two. Room 315; the 5 hangs sideways and rattles when the hinges finally squeak open. He shoves the card in his pocket and blinks through the orange-edged dimness, feet dragging, stone-like, so slow, slow like the prickling slide of sand through his fingers, the bullet rattling in the chamber, the pulse of waves rushing up the shore, all the things he misses and all the things he doesn't. There's a thump and a pattering, heels clicking on tile, and then she is there, really there, skin cold and hair damp and arms stronger than ever. Five months and two days of absence shatter and melt with the raindrops against the window. "Hey," he laughs, taking a breath, nodding, clumsy, ecstatic.

"Missed you," she whispers. He moves his hands a little lower; his wrist brushes against the gun sticking out of the back of her pants, like old times. He swallows. He has never felt more out-of-place or more at home. Her teeth are white, her red lips shivering, smiling and faltering and then smiling again, her hands already at work on his tie.

"Me too," he mutters after a pause, reaching everywhere and nowhere, her flexing shoulder blades, her flushed cheeks, the line of her clavicle. Her eyes are not green at all now, but bright, so bright, and they are drowning out all sound, and in the darkness he wonders if she can see his at all.

* * *

The letters come sometimes every month, sometimes every six, and they always end the same way, two syllables in her cramped-up handwriting, smaller than the rest. _Burn this._ He holds the match in one hand and the paper in the other and watches the words run together and blacken and twist until the flame is nipping at his fingertips, ash cooling in his palm with his frustration. He never minded being alone ashes go down the garbage disposal with all the beer hidden beneath the sink, a regular detox. Always. He memorizes the address, the room number, her new name whether this time he will ask the desk for "Noreen," or for "Anna," or for "Susan," and then ignore the receptionist's judgmental stare.

* * *

New York is cold and anonymous and busy--she lights up with the skyscrapers, jumpier, gentler, more like the Kate he likes to think she used to be. She kisses the edge of his frost-bitten nose and pulls her coat tighter around her shoulders, giggling at the snowflakes making his hair turn white. They hold hands, her fingers twisted with his in his left pocket, and walk down a block and then back up it. No one looks at them twice.

The hotel is posh, one of those quintessential franchises where the richest of the rich kids have their high school proms, where there are chandeliers on every floor and a man in every elevator, on payroll just to push a button. It makes him a little nauseous, a little paranoid, thinking about what she must have done to make this happen. Those credit cards can't be real. But she is watching for his reaction and so he grins at her, at the way her freckles dance when she is happy. (And she is happy. Please, let her be happy. Don't let it be a lie.) _Wow._

She kisses him Eskimo-style now, pulling off his hat and replacing it with her warmer hand. "I thought we deserved something nice." He nods too seriously against the prickly wool of his scarf.

"I like it."

She grabs his arm suddenly and smiles, bright and beautiful. It makes him feel so old, so defenseless, so eager. "Look. I think I found a coffee bar."

* * *

It is in Orlando that she tells him.

"I miss it," she says, flat on her back, sheets rolled up in a haphazard ball at the foot of the bed. It's ten o'clock. Ten o'clock, and they have to be out of here by eleven, but they haven't moved yet. They eat stale Saltines straight from the box, pretending it's still midnight and they have all the time in the world, all the time they will ever need.

"Oh," he says, his voice coming out a bit _off,_ boxy, kind of. "Okay," although _Yeah. I know._ would probably be more appropriate. He doesn't have to ask her what. He presses his hand where the curve of her neck meets her jaw, rubbing as gently as he is able. Her hair tangles in his fingers, unkempt, curly, free, a constant reminder. "Me too," he adds, the phrase tripping comfortably off his tongue. It has replaced "you okay?" as their placeholder.

She sighs and rolls over onto her stomach. He sits back a little, uncertain. Her voice is smooth with sleep. "We fought so hard to get off the island and now we're just . . ." she leaves it there, a millstone around both their necks, dragging them off the precipice. He feels the tickle of water against his bare toes already and rubs her back with both hands, feeling the muscles roll and tense, feeling the pebbles of her spine wind up and unwind, a rhythm he understands too well.

His watch beeps shrilly from the bathroom and he freezes, apologetic. He has a plane to catch. She turns up the corners of her lips and swats away apologies like bees. Her smile is never the same, he realizes; he always knew but he only realizes it now; it is never the same, shifting and wavering with the wind behind her back. Now it is calm and patient and he knows that this means she is hurt.

"I love you," he says softly, leaning over her, a shadow on her face, a murmur in her ear. She smiles again and pulls his face down to hers, one hand tapping a silent tune on his shoulder, the other at his waist, simultaneously pulling him closer and pushing him away.

"Go," she tells his five o'clock shadow in a voice too gentle, pressing her lips to that spot on his neck, the one she always comes back to.

He kisses her forehead and wishes she'd said "me too" instead.

* * *

In Detroit she pushes him up against the shut door, or he lets her, or that's what he tells himself, the chain lock hard against his back, her ragged nails digging into his arms through his shirt, sending prickles of excitement up and down and into his veins, everything, everywhere. It's sunny outside, midday through the half-shut curtains. The light dances off the sheen of her hair, blinding him; it's too much, too soon, again, nearing violence but not quite pain. He tries so hard to hang on. (God. So hard.) He lifts her up, her legs arching around his waist, and holds her firm against the checkered wallpaper, his fingers sweltering and slipping in time with her gasps, the hot air like ice melting against his neck, the tropical-scented shampoo in her hair forcing his eyes shut, too strong. Her mouth tastes like some kind of fruit, sweet and clinging to his tongue. Their shadows dance across the ceiling.

When it's over they stay like that for an interminable moment, his head bent forward against the wall, palms flat, bracing, holding up their weight, her face buried in his neck. He shivers at her restless angles, moving, always moving.

His cell phone is vibrating in his discarded jacket, he can hear it. The hospital. She laughs to his shoulder, more breath than actual sound. When he finally pulls away and sets her down she begins to cry.

* * *

"We could go away." He keeps his voice casual, louder than the running water, softer than the TV in the next room over. "Together." The shower comes to a stop with a clank and a hiss. He grabs her a towel, automatically. She tucks in the ends beneath her shoulder and watches him in the mirror, yesterday's mascara ringing her eyes black. He shifts and looks down at the blue shirt wadded in his hand. "We wouldn't have to hide anymore. I could get a new job and--" _and you could get a new name and this could actually work._ She wrings out her dripping hair over the sink.

"Jack." Kate looks down, as if disappointed, and turns to pick up her clothes, clutching them to her chest. He watches the trails of water trickling down her neck, her legs, transfixed; the drain gurgles and then stops. She bites her lip, pushing a strand of hair back from her forehead, elbow at a sharp right angle.

"I wouldn't let anyone find you." She looks at him askance, and he knows it's stupid, and so does she, but he has to try. Try try try. "It could be okay. It would be." He can't keep the fervency from entering his voice, from permeating it; it bubbles up his throat and escapes into the moist air, toxic. "Kate." His hands find her bare shoulders, fingers splayed across soft skin. She hunches into herself a little, a spasm skimming across her face--or maybe he imagines it. Maybe this is transference. Her eyes are quiet, his full. She leans into him and then away, his fingers peeling numbly from her skin like plastic. "Kate." Repetition is his only constant. She looks back at him, steam clouding his vision and, he hopes, her judgment. She almost smiles, pained, immovable. He shakes his head. She nods. The grief slaps him in the face, sharp, an oozing wound she won't, can't stitch up, not this time.

They get dressed in silence.

* * *

The next letter arrives six months later, two weeks before the new year. His heart rolls in his throat, a sickening swallow. He is too happy--Hurley was right. It can't be real. He tears the business envelope down the middle with trembling fingers, car keys abandoned on the ground. Postmark: LA.

There is no hotel, no room number. There is only a flight number and a seat: 16D. Her name is Julie this time.

He smiles to a neighbor--just out walking the dog, and how was your Sunday?--and when she has turned the corner begins to shake, desperation, a rawer sort of fear, twisting the finer lines of his face into something strange. _I've always wanted to see Australia_, she writes. He almost laughs, tracing the big 'A' with the pad of his thumb. He knew it.

_Burn this_, she ends, as always, and it sends familiar electricity up and down his doubled-over spine. This is it. He reaches for the lighter he always carries with him now and then stops, folding the letter in his pocket instead, grinning like a mad man at the sunny sky, his mind going too quickly, flying too far ahead, spastic, rattling against the bars of its cage. The letter stays in his pocket. The lighter? He chucks it over his shoulder.

He'll let it burn in the wreckage.


End file.
